Well, I was hoping Jon would come back and field this one, but...I'll just say he's a stick. Not Jon, the guy who played Benedick. The actor's name is Alexis Denisof, and I've seen him in only one other role -- Wesley in the Buffy TV series (the Watcher who temporarily replaced Giles). I've never thought Sarah Michelle Geller was a good actor, but there's a difference between "not good" and "downright bad", and IMO Denisof gave the only downright bad performance in that entire series. He's a lot better in Much Ado -- but he's still a stick.

I wouldn't go that far. I think he's fine, using that overworked word with its frequent faint-praise connotation of "plenty good enough, but I can't get really excited." He doesn't hurt the film at all, but if I'm listing 3 or 4 standout performances, I'll choose others.

Me, I went to The Heat. I like Sandra Bullock and there are a lot of funny things in the movie, but there were so many scenes of the two women scrabbling at each other and talking over each other and acting like silly schoolgirls instead of middle-aged law enforcement officers that I started thinking, oh, %!#@!^%, will you get on with it! Frankly, I wish I'd gone to see the zombies instead.

I, too, made a wrong choice -- Now You See Me. I read somewhere that it was similar to The Prestige, and that was enough to draw me in. But the only connection was the subject matter, illusionists and how they work. The tricks in Now You See Me were entertaining at first, but they grew more and more preposterous so that the movie ended up just being ludicrous. Correction: there is one more connection with The Prestige -- Michael Caine is in both movies.

I'm a little late with this, but if you got a kick out of RED, you'll enjoy RED 2. It's pretty much the same basic story (without the novelty appeal, of course) but with new gags, new stunts. Helen Mirren still switches between grande dame and heavily armed assassin with ease, equally comfortable in both roles. Mary Louise Parker is still stealing scenes from Bruce Willis, and John Malkovich is a real hoot in this one. It's a funny movie.

I figured I'd look RED up on Netflix and watch it. There was a movie called Red, all right, so I watched it. Unfortunately, it was a 5 year old drama about a man whose dog is killed, and how he gets retribution for it. Not a bad movie, IMHO, but obviously not the one you are talking about.